In this image provided by Brian Patrick Flynn, an Australian photographer's love of warm, golden yellow Australian sun from his home country, inspired the designer, Brian Patrick Flynn, to cover the entire space in bright yellow tones in his client's dining room in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Brian Patrick Flynn, Sarah Dorio/HGTV Remodels) / AP

Written by

Melissa Rayworth

For The Associated Press

The lush orange trees of California were the inspiration in a client's den for designer Brian Patrick Flynn, where he layered several shades of orange throughout the space to bring vacation memories home. / AP

In this image provided by Brian Patrick Flynn, the bedroom of a tween cheerleader, designed by Brian Patrick Flynn, shows his use of the kelly green fabric of her cheerleading camp uniform as inspiration in Los Angeles. The green-covered space not only reminds her of cheerleading, but also wide open, green spaces. (AP Photo/Brian Patrick Flynn, Sarah Dorio/HGTV Remodels) / AP

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Summer travel leaves many of us with memories of ocean sunsets or foreign street scenes or other only-on-vacation sights. Once we’ve returned home, how can we hold onto some of that beauty and bring it into our living spaces?

With minimal effort and expense, Los Angeles-based interior designer Betsy Burnham says you can live year-round with a bit of the charm and feeling of your favorite travel destinations. “You don’t have to redecorate. All you have to do is kind of pinpoint what it is that evokes the sensation of still being there.”

“Look back through your photos and just think about the sense of place,” she says. “It can be as simple as a jar of shells that appears in your guest bathroom,” or as dramatic as repainting a room.

Burnham and interior designers Kyle Schuneman (author of “The First Apartment Book: Cool Design For Small Spaces,” due out Aug. 28 from Clarkson Potter) and Brian Patrick Flynn, founder of decordemon.com, share advice on bringing your travels into your home.

Use color: “When people get stumped on colors or decorating ideas for a room they spend a lot of time in, the first thing I’ll do is ask them to think of a time and place that they went to that really made them happy,” says Flynn.

For one client, he repainted a bathroom the exact shade of robin’s egg blue that was used throughout a hotel where the couple stayed during a memorable anniversary trip.

Another client, living in Los Angeles, wanted to be reminded of his sun-drenched Australian home. “In his breakfast nook, we went with pure, bold, almost radiation yellow,” Flynn says. “It always feels sunny and reminds him of how it feels to be in Australia.”

Start a collection: Shuneman suggests picking up similar items from different places to create a collection that will grow with each vacation. “Whether it be something free, like ticket stubs from everywhere you’ve been to together, or pottery that you can display together,” he says, “incorporating these memories are what good design is all about.”